Sunday, November 08, 2015

Hejira

Deb Richman (AP) reports, "The U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Syria is creeping forward,
putting more pressure on Congress to vote on a new Authorization for the
Use of Military Force. It would be the first war vote in Congress in 13
years."

US House Rep Tom Cole's office issued the following on Friday:

Nov 6, 2015

Washington, D.C.
– A broad, bipartisan coalition of 35 House lawmakers called on Speaker
Ryan today to schedule and debate an Authorization for the Use of
Military Force (AUMF) as quickly as possible following the recent
announcement by President Obama of a deepening entanglement in Syria and
Iraq.The letter to Speaker Ryan is led by Representatives Jim McGovern (D-MA), Tom Cole, (R-OK), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Walter Jones (R-NC), Peter Welch (D-VT), and John Lewis (D-GA). “Last week, the president announced [that] the U.S. will deploy a
U.S. Special Operations contingent into northern Syria to be embedded
with and to advise opposition militant forces in that region; and U.S.
military advisors and special operations forces already in Iraq will be
embedded with Kurdish and Iraqi forces on the front lines of combat,”
the lawmakers wrote, calling the move part of “a significant escalation
in U.S. military operations in the region” that places “U.S. military
personnel on the front lines of combat operations.”“We do not share the same policy prescriptions for U.S. military
engagement in the region, but we do share the belief that it is past
time for the Congress to fulfill its obligations under the Constitution
and vote on an AUMF that clearly delineates the authority and limits, if
any, on U.S. military engagement in Iraq, Syria and the surrounding
region,” the lawmakers added. “Congress can no longer ask our brave service men and women to
continue to serve in harm’s way while we fail in carrying out our
constitutional responsibility in the area of war and peace,” the
lawmakers concluded. “As long as the House fails to assert its
constitutional prerogatives and authority, the Administration may
continue to expand the mission and level of engagement of U.S. Armed
Forces throughout the region. We strongly urge you, Mr. Speaker, to
bring an AUMF to the floor of the House as quickly as possible.”Other Members signing the letter are Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI),
Michael Burgess (R-TX), David Cicilline (D-RI), John Conyers (D-MI), Joe
Crowley (D-NY), John Abney Culberson (R-TX), Peter A. DeFazio (D-OR),
John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-TN), John Garamendi (D-CA), Paul A. Gosar (R-AZ),
Janice Hahn (D-CA), Richard L. Hanna (R-NY), Joe Kennedy (D-MA), Daniel
Kildee (D-MI), Raúl R. Labrador (R-ID), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Mick
Mulvaney (R-SC), Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), Bill
Posey (R-FL), Charles Rangel (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Matt
Salmon (R-AZ), Mark Sanford (R-SC), Janice D. Schakowsky (D-IL), Louise
Slaughter (D-NY), Ed Whitfield (R-KY), Ted S. Yoho (R-FL), and Ryan K.
Zinke (R-MT).The full letter, sent today, can be found here.

If they were to vote, it would be the first authorization for war Congress had voted on since 2002 when they voted to authorize the Iraq War.

Though some, like con man John Edwards, would later claim they were misled, tricked into voting, the reality is that those voting for the Iraq War (which included Hillary Clinton and John Kerry) were adults who all knew what they were doing.

US House Rep Maxine Waters did not sign the open letter.

I'm told that's because she doesn't want a vote.

Some don't want a vote because they don't want to go on the record.

Certainly, politicians have learned (or re-learned) that there are consequences when you vote in favor of unneeded war.

But I'm told Maxine doesn't want a vote for fear that something might pass which would further commit US forces overseas.

That's a valid fear.

Despite world outcry, the US went to war on Iraq.

And continues war on Iraq. The US Defense Dept issued the following today:

Strikes in IraqBomber, fighter, attack, ground-attack, and remotely piloted
aircraft conducted 19 strikes in Iraq, coordinated with and in support
of Iraq’s government:-- Near Albu Hayat, one strike struck a large ISIL tactical
unit and destroyed eight ISIL buildings and an ISIL command and control
node.-- Near Mosul, one strike struck an ISIL tactical unit and destroyed an ISIL checkpoint.-- Near Qayyarah, one strike struck an ISIL staging area.-- Near Ramadi, four strikes destroyed an ISIL weapons cache,
an ISIL tactical vehicle, an ISIL building, suppressed movement of five
ISIL tactical vehicles, and denied ISIL access to terrain.-- Near Sinjar, eleven strikes struck five separate ISIL
tactical units and destroyed two ISIL assembly areas, 21 ISIL fighting
positions, three ISIL light machine guns, and three ISIL vehicles.

-- Near Sultan Abdallah, one strike struck an ISIL tactical
unit and destroyed an ISIL heavy machine gun and an ISIL fighting
position.

I understand where Maxine's said to be coming from but my own opinion is they'll do whatever anyway so they might as well do it openly.

And maybe, just maybe, if they choose to support war, they can face accountability?

Chalabi survived as a figure on the Iraqi political scene although his
credibility collapsed when the promised weapons were not found and he
was spurned by Washington for leaking information to Iran. He was
charged with circulating old currency meant for destruction and accused
of appropriating state assets. A short month after the fall of Baghdad,
Chalabi’s members of entourage were accused of involvement in hijacking
luxury cars and exporting them through the Kurdish region in northern
Iraq to Turkey and beyond.

When the US-backed government under
Nouri al-Maliki put him in charge of rooting out outlawed Baath party
members from the administration, he expelled experienced civil servants,
particularly Sunnis, who had simply joined the ruling party to obtain
employment. He was in charge of the commission that banned 500 Sunnis
from standing for parliament in the 2010 election. The exclusion and
persecution of Sunnis by the Shia-fundamentalist regime led to the rise
of al-Qaeda and its off-shoot Daesh.

If Junior Bush
administration worthies had bothered to check out Chalabi’s career, they
would have known they were dealing with a figure widely seen as a
“conman.”

He was charged with false accounting and embezzlement
at Jordan’s Petra Bank, founded in 1977 and liquidated in 1989, with a
loss of $200 million which the cash-strapped Jordanian government was
compelled to refund to depositors. Chalabi fled the country in the boot
of a friend’s Mercedes. He was subsequently accused of being involved in
the collapse of Lebanon’s Mebco bank and its various branches. He was
wanted in Jordan, Lebanon and Switzerland.

In the 1990s, Chalabi
attempted to raise a Kurdish revolt against Saddam Hussein; it was
crushed and the insurgents killed. Chalabi escaped. The $100 million
given to him for the INC has never been properly accounted for.

Chalabi did great harm in Iraq.

I'm traveling in some vehicleI'm sitting in some cafeA defector from the petty warsThat shell shock love away-- "Hejira," written by Joni Mitchell, first appears on her album of the same name

The number of US service members the Dept of Defense states died in the Iraq War is [PDF format warning] 4497 (plus 10 in Operation Inherent Resolve which includes at least 1 Iraq War fatality).

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.